Watch Gavin Newsom, George Lopez discuss COVID vaccination efforts in Fresno visit

Gov. Gavin Newsom gave a COVID-19 update Friday at a vaccine clinic in Fresno, where he addressed initiatives aimed at serving the hardest-hit and most at-risk communities in the Central Valley.

The event was at Fresno Interdenominational Refugee Ministries in central Fresno.

Watch a recording of the livestream here:

A string of speakers preceded Newsom ending with comedian and advocate George Lopez, who highlighted the importance of farmworkers in California.

In a letter sent to Newsom on Thursday, organizations as diverse as the California Farmworker Foundation, the Fresno County Farm Bureau, Cultiva La Salud, the Central Valley Community Foundation and the California Fresh Fruit Association and others described vaccines for farm workers as a matter of “moral imperative and economic urgency.”

Both Thursday’s letter, and an earlier Feb. 19 letter to the governor, noted inequities in the rollout of coronavirus vaccines to agricultural workers who are spread out in rural areas of the state and are often isolated by economic, cultural and language differences from much of the state’s population.

This story was originally published February 26, 2021 at 10:40 AM.